Actions Speak Louder than Words: Expanding UK Government Guarantees to Scale Up International Public Investment in Children

The Global Partnership Conference through to the G20 Presidency offer a crucial moment for the UK to demonstrate leadership in generating international finance for shared global challenges. This is a key part of a renewed approach to international cooperation, rooted in principles of equitable partnership and evidenced mutual interest.  Amidst widespread cuts to official development assistance (ODA) and continued challenges in scaling up wider development finance to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is imperative the UK’s leadership goes beyond convening, compacts and communiques and takes firm action.

The focus of this action should be to expand the fiscal space for investment in children in low-income countries – in children’s health, nutrition, education and protection from violence and climate crisis. These are fundamental building blocks of global prosperity and peace. There are several low-cost and low-risk concrete actions the UK could and should take to help achieve this. One clear example that would be a powerful but feasible deliverable for the Global Partnership Conference is to expand the UK’s provision of guarantees to further support innovative resource mobilisation efforts of multilateral institutions. This would provide tangible support to governments in lower-income countries at this critical time. It would also be a statement of intent going into the G20 Presidency. It provides a springboard of credibility and ambition from which the UK can drive meaningful progress on a broader package of financing measures through the G20 and other processes, such as multilateral reform and debt sustainability. Whilst the UK has been a world leader in the provision of guarantees to support multilateral institutions to date, at present the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has limited risk headroom to provide any more, despite the risks being extremely low. The Treasury (HMT) needs to change this.